The RIRA Column

Matthew Katz, President Roosevelt Island Residents Association e-mail: MatthewKatz@verizon.net

As you are reading this, Sherie and I are experiencing real winter weather in arctic Denver, Colorado, where we are celebrating Sherie’s aunt’s 90th birthday. There’s nothing like an urban freezer for preserving one’s elderly relatives!

The RIRA/CERT blood drive is over and I, for one, am grateful for the respite. This was a project I agreed to last September, received the support of the RIRA Common Council for in October, and after being elected to another term as President, started organizing in earnest last November. Over four Saturdays, we sat 32 one-hour shifts at the Farmers Market to solicit your donations. Here’s the score:

I would rate this drive as a qualified success. Through sixteen hours of one-to-one pleading, tons of printed material posted on kiosks, in buses and in lobbies all over Roosevelt Island and through the excellent article written by Matthew Russell in the last WIRE, we obtained 70 pledges of blood. Of these, 27 people failed to show up, having forgotten (despite being given written reminders), changed plans or, simply, succumbed to a case of cold feet. Of the 43 people who showed up at the Senior Center, 11 were deferred for medical reasons. Of the remaining 32, 30 donated a pint of whole blood and two agreed to give what the New York Blood Center calls "double red cells." These donations on special automated machines are counted as double donations, we are told, and so our final score is 34 donations. We had committed to a goal of 40, hence the "qualified" success. However, if one of these pints saved your life or the life of a loved one, our success becomes unambiguous.

I want to thank the RIRA Common Council and CERT members who volunteered to sit out in winter weather and yes, it gets cold out there – even this winter – after an hour or so. They include: Lynn Chambers, Mark Chipman, Frank Farance, Georganna Galateau, Sherie Helstien, Jonathan Kalkin, Kim Lengle, Steve Marcus, Joyce Mincheff, Ellen Polivy, Howard Polivy, Zlatko Ramljak, George Reither, Margie Smith, and Betty Walker. I also would like to thank Dolores Green and the Senior Center for the use of the hall. And finally, kudos to the professionals at the New York Blood Center who brought off that long day’s journey like a military campaign.

Both State Senator José Serrano (left) and RIRA were among the blood donors two weeks ago at the Senior Center. Katz organized the event for RIRA and the Island’s CERT team.

Of course, hats off to those of you who took 40 minutes out of your busy Saturday to give "the gift of life," as the Blood Center calls it when they wax poetic. We have committed to another blood drive on Roosevelt Island Day in June and, with luck and perseverance, blood will flow along with the spring sap.

I’ll add my welcome to Herb Berman’s in his last RIOC column to the new staffers at RIOC. I hope to speak to all of them in the near future. Recently I had a long and candid meeting with the new Community Liaison, Erica Wilder. This lovely and canny young woman seems eager to enhance communication between RIOC and this community. We talked about the potential for joint RIRA/RIOC projects that would utilize the geographical and human assets Roosevelt Island has in abundance and she is taking the time to meet with many of the Island’s leadership. Specifically, we discussed the potential for using Southpoint Park as the site for outdoor movie screenings in the summer (as RIRA did several summers ago) and some of the permitting and insurance barriers that have prevented a reprise of that spectacularly successful venture. We agreed that the limits of what we can accomplish are set only by the breadth of our imaginations. Stay tuned.

D’ya know those funny little street lights at the Chapel/Senior Center street crossing and stretching from Meditation Steps almost to the subway station? It seems they are called bollards and will be an additional source of street light. Now you know. As they are now illuminated, although sporadically it seems, you might share your opinion as to whether they enhance the beauty of our streetscape and improve street lighting via a letter to the editor of this newspaper.

Several weeks ago, I was crossing the street at the crosswalk fronting 580 Main Street. As I approached a large, grey van that was moving north towards the stop sign there, it sped up and almost knocked me down. When I mentioned this to a passing Public Safety officer, he said that traffic often ignores both the red, octagonal stop signs as well as the less-imperative yield signs. This state of affairs is clearly an accident waiting to happen. I hope that the yield signs can be exchanged for stop signs, for a start, and that Public Safety will step up enforcement of the traffic laws so as to instill the habit of obeying these signs in the private vehicles, delivery trucks, City buses and yes, Red Buses that ply our streets. The life they save…well, you know the rest.

I have a pet peeve. Does it make you as nuts as it does me to walk down Main Street and see it covered in garbage? Invariably, there are chicken bones and used duck sauce containers in front of the Chinese restaurant; cast-off receipts at the bank ATM, despite the trash can positioned to accommodate unwanted paper; empty chip bags and candy wrappers at the school entrance after 3:00 p.m.; and you may recall discarded paper plates and pizza crusts back when we actually had a pizza parlor. Why, I’ve seen entire newspapers blowin’ in the wind, abandoned by their purchasers.

Let’s try this: Pick up one piece of trash every time you set foot on Main Street, discard it appropriately, and ask others to do the same. Also, when you see someone carelessly drop their refuse on the sidewalk, ask them – politely – to make a deposit in one of our many spiffy $2,000 trash cans that are available all over the Island. The merchants and RIOC aren’t going to keep up with our slovenly neighbors, but we have it in our power to change nasty habits and enhance our home streets.

Last week I met with Andy Stone, who is the long-time manager of our Southpoint Park project for the Trust for Public Land (TPL). He informs me that a design firm, Wallace, Roberts & Todd, LLC, has been hired to oversee the schematic design and full-scale construction documents leading to the start of construction of Phase I. You will recall that $12 million has been allocated from City, State and RIOC sources for Phase I, which will preserve and stabilize the Renwick Ruins, provide access to a new woodland and garden area north of the ruins and provide improved parkland infrastructure. I believe that, until there is a determination as to the status of the Louis Kahn Memorial to FDR (the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute has a finite time in which to raise the funds) and the status of the mystery RFIP (request for initial proposal) that clouds the potential use of the northernmost three acres of our park, it will be difficult to create a definitive park-wide construction plan. Andy tells me that shovels-in-the-ground could conceivably begin during the summer of 2008, all things being equal. Phase I eventually will be followed by one or two more phases of this roughly $30 million state-of-the-art park that will attract users from, well, everywhere. City Council Member Jessica Lappin has plans to host a Town Meeting on the subject, tentatively scheduled for February 13, and I hope you will bring your views so that the "deciders" can hear your voices.

You know I love a good quote and so I’ll share with you some words posted next to my computer desk in 36-point type:

–Henry Stern, former NYC Parks Commissioner
The New York Times, September 11, 2001